WLBT 3 - Jackson, MS: Woman Blames Nursing Home for Amputation

Woman Blames Nursing Home for Amputation

By Monica Hernandez
monica@wlbt.net

A nursing home's responsibility is to care for those in need. But one woman says a Hazlehurst nursing home is the reason her diabetic mother is in a Jackson hospital awaiting amputation.

Willie Mae Coleman has led an active life in Hazlehurst. She loved to dance, and she raised four children. But as she approaches 70 years old, her children are staying by her side in a hospital room. On Friday, March 28, Coleman was admitted to University Medical Center in Jackson for gangrene. Her left leg will be amputated before April 4.  

"It's hard to accept something like this," said Coleman's daughter, Sandra Coleman. "There are no words to put on it. Once part of your body's gone, then it's gone."

Sandra blames the Pine Crest Guest Home for neglecting to give her mother the care she needed.

"It could have been avoided if her leg had been properly elevated and proper procedure would have been done," she says. "It wouldn't have come to her having surgery."

"I think vascular disease is always preventative on several levels," said Coleman's doctor, Huey McDaniels.

Sandra says although her mother was admitted to UMC on Friday, nobody from the nursing home that brought her here notified them. In fact, her family didn't know she was there until Sunday. Sandra says her siblings went to visit Coleman at Pine Crest Guest Home on Sunday, but Coleman wasn't there. That's how they found out she was in the hospital.

But the nursing home's owner, Ron Guins, says he's proud of the nursing home. 

"We gave Ms. Coleman excellent care," said Guins.

Willie Mae's doctor says Coleman's case is unique because she has other medical problems. He says he understands where the nursing home is coming from.

"If it was a patient that was communicative, then she could have told people that her leg hurt, and people would have focused on that," said McDaniels. 

But Sandra Coleman says there's no excuse for allowing her mother to get to a point where amputation is the only option.

"If it's happening to us, it could be happening to others there, too," said Sandra.